


Rehearsal

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Figuring Things Out, Gen, History, Musing, Young Bruce, theater background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9403367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Alfred Pennyworth remembers a long history with his employer and questions himself as a father figure. He was really just doing the best he could and the circumstances were unusual.Set in Dick Grayson's early days as Robin.





	

_act: present_

_scene: wayne manor_

_players: alfred pennyworth, age irrelevant_

It might appear to be a sort of magic, the way Alfred Pennyworth positions himself at the east wing ballroom door that leads back into the manor, just as Bruce Wayne flashes a kind, white smile. It is not magic– it is attentiveness. Alfred knew from the way Bruce clasped the gentleman’s hand, said something low and quiet that made the two women giggle and glance at each other, that the evening at the cocktail party was drawing to a close for Bruce.

And as Bruce makes his way across the room, calling out casual farewells and promises of golf games when the weather turns and handing out rueful, half-amused excuses for himself, Alfred feels within himself a minor melody of both pride and sorrow.

He did this to him.

He made him this way.

Perhaps circumstances dictated his actions or perhaps Bruce would have found other methods, but for what it is worth, Alfred played his part readily enough at the beginning.

At the beginning, all he wanted was to help.

He opens the door for Bruce as he approaches, nods once, and follows him into the dim and private hallway. The door locks behind them; it will not allow any to follow without a key or alerting the security system.

And he watches from just a few steps behind and to the left. He does not need to see Bruce’s face to know the change there, the subtle hardening. He has seen it many times. The posture and the gait change, into something more intentional and rigid. And it will change again in mere minutes, when he puts the suit on downstairs.

They are almost to the grandfather clock, still walking without speaking, when a young Dick Grayson slides down the bannister with a loud whoop.

“I thought you’d never get outta there! I’ve been waiting for hours!”

“It was forty-five minutes,” Bruce counters with slight amusement, his voice already changed. It is not Batman’s voice, but it is not Bruce Wayne’s social voice, either. It sounds more measured, more determined, though it is the most natural of the three– it is the Batman and the Socialite Bruce that are actually practiced, calculated forms.

Alfred is aware of this because Alfred taught him how to do it, and he rues and treasures those years by turns. They are full of such bitterness and loss and have led to so much more, but they were also moments of hope for a continued life.

Bruce and Dick go ahead of him into the cave and Alfred is left standing in the parlor, remembering all those years ago with a broken little boy and grief and desperation and the relief of finally, finally having something tangible to do.

 

_act one, scene one: the beginning_

_setting: wayne manor, one month after wayne murders_

_players: -bruce wayne, age 9_  

_-alfred pennyworth, age 31_

“I can’t do it,” Bruce said, shaking his head and gulping air, frozen in the parlor. “I won’t go.”

“But you must,” Alfred insisted gently. “The memorial service is important for you to attend.”

He wished it wasn’t. He wished so much public and company opinion wasn’t resting on the shoulders of his young charge.

“I’m not going,” Bruce said again, fists clenched into pale-knuckled balls at his sides. “They’ll all be watching me.”

“That they will, Master Bruce. Ought we to give them a show?”

Bruce looked up at Alfred at this, his expression stern and curious and hurt all at once– it was too old for his small face, for the features still edged in childhood.

“What do you mean?”

“If you don’t want them to look at you,” Alfred said, leaning over to match eye-level with the boy, “then you give them something else to look at. What do you think they want to see?”

“They want to see me cry,” Bruce said scornfully. “They want to see…” he paused, and blinked back tears. “It’s mine, not theirs. But they want to see it. And if I don’t, I know what they’ll say about me. About my parents.”

One of the many, many mistakes Alfred had made in the past few weeks was not cancelling Thomas Wayne’s newspaper subscriptions. Bruce had already begun sitting with the stack of them at the breakfast table, holding them open in his too-short arm span and reading them over in conscious imitation of his father.

The newspapers were not kind.

“Grieving but sullen Wayne boy,” “traumatized and stony-faced,” “distant manner often found in the wealthy when surrounded by family staff instead of family,” they’d written, never imagining or not caring that the same nine-year-old might actually read the words about himself.

“Then you will cry,” Alfred said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We will act the part and give them what they want. Consider the public your stage.”

“How?” Bruce asked, sniffling once. “I don’t want to cry in front of everyone. I don’t even want to think about…about…it,” he settled on, instead of ‘my parents’ or ‘the shooting.’ The unspoken words were heavy absences, siphoning air from the room.

“Then you will pretend to be someone who wants to cry,” Alfred said firmly and kindly. “We will rehearse, right this moment.”

“Alright,” Bruce said, considering the idea. “Who will you be?”

“A reporter, of course,” Alfred said, disregarding both the prick of hesitation and the pang of distaste at what he’d need to do to properly prepare the boy.

Alfred changed his posture, he dropped one shoulder a bit, he pretended there was a memo pad in his hands with a pen poised to write. When he spoke, it was with an American accent tinged with Gotham harshness and all the vocal and stage training of another life before the Waynes.

“Mr. Bruce, can I call you Mr. Bruce? Your parents were loved by Gotham; do you think the city has done them justice today with this memorial?”

Alfred pretended to be looking at a notebook that wasn’t there, but he glanced up at Bruce– the boy’s eyes widened in shock and his lips curled in delighted surprise for just a second, until the words themselves hit him and he flinched.

“Don’t flinch,” Alfred advised quietly in his normal voice, “and don’t be stiff. Brace yourself by keeping your muscles relaxed on purpose; give it your time and effort until you can do it without thought. A moment’s pause shows fear if you maintain eye contact, but thoughtfulness if you look up a bit to the left.”

Bruce nodded.

“Again,” he said. “Start again.”

Alfred did.

They worked until Bruce could give the answers to half a dozen prying questions, could cry but not sob at the right break in his replies, and could force a shaky smile and give a handshake.

Bruce was a natural. It took all of fifteen minutes.

 

_act one, scene twelve: the close of the first year_

_setting: christmas, guest house, kane estate, california_

_players: -bruce wayne, age 9_  

- _alfred pennyworth, age 31_

“I don’t want to be nice to him,” Bruce snapped. “I heard them talking. They’re going to try to keep me here after the holiday.”

“Acting petulant won’t do you any good,” Alfred said sternly, hiding his own inner conflict with a steady voice and hands that did not falter in their ironing.

“He can’t just keep me here like that. This isn’t home.”

Alfred wanted the Kanes to take Bruce in.

He did not want the responsibility of raising a grieving boy.

Alfred did not want the Kanes to take Bruce.

He did not trust Jacob Kane.

“You must show them, then, that you are mature, and well-reasoned,” Alfred said.

“Practice with me,” Bruce begged, tugging on Alfred’s arm while Alfred straightened the collar of the boy’s shirt for dinner later and set the crease with the iron.

Alfred turned the iron off and turned to Bruce with a straight spine, a firm set of his jaw.

“We thought you could stay with us, Bruce,” he said, with a tinge of the coastal nasal in his voice, full of military precision and command. “Kate would love to have you around.”

Bruce took a deep breath.

“I’m terribly sorry, Uncle Jacob, but I’d really rather stay with Alf–”

Alfred raised an eyebrow, just slightly. Bruce stopped and started over.

“I’m terribly sorry, Uncle Jacob, but it was important to my father that I attend Gotham Academy. And Mr. Fox is already helping me learn the ropes at the company for when I’m old enough.”

Alfred gave a single nod.

“Go practice that, without rushing your words. Emphasize ‘uncle’ and ‘father,’ but not too much.”

He returned to the ironing.

Bruce went home with him the next day.

 

_act four, scene nine: summer fete_

_setting: wayne foundation picnic, publicity event_

_players: -bruce wayne, age 13_

_-alfred pennyworth, age 35_

“It’ll be hot,” Bruce complained, buttoning his polo. “And if I so much as frown, they’ll say in the papers that I was glum, or sullen, or bored.”

“You are glum and sullen and bored,” Alfred noted mildly, shaking a bottle of sunscreen and squeezing some into Bruce’s outstretched hand. The boy rubbed it over his face and sighed.

“Lucius says it’s bad PR.”

“Then you smile,” Alfred said. “You do remember how to smile, Master Bruce?”

That got a smile out of the young teen.

“I’m rather relieved. What with the raging hormones, I’d rather thought you’d forgotten.”

“Alfred,” Bruce whined, a faint flush in his cheeks even under the white sunscreen.

“We are not embarrassed by science and fact, Master Bruce. Being rattled by the laws of nature shows lack of thought.”

“Just wait until my voice changes,” Bruce grumbled, rubbing sunscreen on his ears. “I’ll wait in the halls when you’re asleep and make you think someone’s broken in.”

“Ah, now that shows foresight and clever planning,” Alfred said, capping the sunscreen. “Just be certain I am not armed. I am rather handy with an epee. Now, your smile. Let me see it.”

Bruce plastered on a smile so exaggerated and forced that Alfred knew the boy was mocking him.

“Keep it up,” Alfred said sternly when the boy’s face began to relax. “You’ve committed to this one now. Maintain it.”

“Al,” Bruce said in a pained tone, through his teeth, after a moment. It was looking more like a grimace with each passing second. “Can I start over?”

“If you think you ought,” Alfred conceded, his own mirth tucked away behind an impassive face.

“Hi,” the boy said, flashing a smile that was both more realistic and entirely unlike him, “I’m Bruce Wayne.”

“Better,” Alfred said. “Now, go drink some warm water to keep those underused facial muscles from seizing up and there’s your summer project.”

“It’s just a picnic,” Bruce protested. “I hate warm water.”

“Learn to like it,” Alfred countered mercilessly. “And there will be many picnic and parties in your future. A good craftsman takes care of his tools.”

“You’re the tool around here,” Bruce muttered under his breath, turning for the kitchen.

“Listen to that,” Alfred said calmly after him. “It’s the sound of a boy doing the dishes for the next two days. That will be a wonderful time to practice smiling.”

Bruce did the dishes after the picnic.

Bruce smiled warmly at the sink the whole time.

Alfred went out and bought an electric kettle.

 

_act seven, scene four: anti-killer contracts_

_setting: wayne enterprises, research facility, demo lab_

_players: -bruce wayne, age 16_  

- _alfred pennyworth, age 38_

“We can go, Master Bruce,” Alfred assured the teen, who sat in the car with shaking hands. His own heart stuttered and he watched Bruce’s hands for just a fraction of a second. “I’m taking you home.”

“No,” Bruce said, sucking in air and pressing his palms on his knees. “No. Lucius said the investors need to see me more involved.”

“The investors are idiots,” Alfred snapped, meeting Bruce’s startled gaze in the rearview mirror. He gathered his own calm and projected it into his next words. “The technology might be valuable but the demonstration is insensitive. I do not think they will fault you for your absence.”

“I don’t want people to think I can be scared away,” Bruce said, looking out the tinted windows toward the building. Inside, there was a small crowd waiting with the scientists who had developed new bullet-resistant armor WE was about to pour several million dollars into acquiring– the demo, of course, involved several models of guns.

“We cannot rehearse this,” Alfred said gently. He cursed himself for ever teaching the boy such things as if they were viable coping mechanisms. This was self-punishment, it was absurd. He was going to have a private word with Lucius Fox later.

“We don’t need to,” Bruce said, putting a hand on the car door. “I’m ready.”

Alfred went into the building with his teenage charge and watched from behind as the boy’s spine straightened, as the hands stopped trembling.

He watched as Bruce greeted the crowd with false but sincere-sounding ease and warmth, admired the armor on display, and dismissed their awkward worry.

“It’s several years in the past,” Bruce said, flashing a smile. “This is now. Wayne Enterprises is very interested in keeping men and women safe even in dangerous lines of work. Let’s see what you can do.”

Every eye in the glassed-in room was on the armor at the end of the range as each gun was fired.

Except Alfred, who watched Bruce.

The youth didn’t flinch.

The youth smiled when speaking, frowned when considering, looked a bit up and to the left when he paused.

Out in the car, he was silent and his face settled into hard lines.

At home that night, he had nightmares full of screaming, jerking Alfred out of his own light sleep down the hall.

“What have I done?” Alfred asked himself, hurrying toward the room full of muffled cries. He flung open the door and Bruce sat up in the dark, gasping in the aftermath while the confusion faded from his brow.

“I had…” he said.

“I know,” Alfred replied, flicking on the lamp. “Are you alright?”

“No,” Bruce said hoarsely, slipping out of bed. “What time is it?”

“Late,” Alfred said. “Come downstairs. I’ll make you some tea.”

Minutes later, Bruce slumped forward over the cup of tea as the steam pooled around his face.

“I don’t know how I’d do it without you,” he said, sounding for all the world like he was thirty years older. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

Alfred was a tempest: he could do better, he should do better, he had bloody messed this poor lad up. There must have been better ways to cope with the grief, with the haunted darkness that hung over Bruce like a cloak.

“You would manage, I dare say,” Alfred said, sipping his own tea.

“No,” Bruce said, pushing a hand through his stubborn, sleep-mussed hair. “I need you, Alfred. Nobody else understands.”

They were not the kind-of-a-father and not-quite-a-son that said things like “I love you.”

But that was pretty damn close.

“I’m glad to be of service, Master Bruce,” Alfred said with unrestrained feeling.

“I’m going to go run,” Bruce said, pushing the tea back on the table. “You don’t have to wait up.”

Alfred waited anyway, busying himself with cleaning punctuated by yawns and worry, while the thrum of a running treadmill carried through the open office door and down the hall.

When Alfred was in the laundry room later, Bruce found him– the youth’s hair was still plastered to his forehead with shower water and he was in clean pajamas. He held another cup of tea out and Alfred finished folding the last towel and accepted it.

They fell asleep, each sitting up with feet propped on the coffee table, on the couch in the den while watching episodes of an old British novel adaptation.

When Alfred woke, the late morning sun was streaming through the windows and Bruce was slumped against his arm.

He reminded himself that teaching him acting wasn’t the only thing he’d done for the boy.

Their relationship and his influence could not be so easily distilled.

He told himself, anyway, as he rose, carefully easing Bruce down onto the couch and throwing a blanket over him.

Forward was the only direction that wasn’t simply “exit, stage right,” and he couldn’t live with that.

 

_act ten, scene fifteen: the fourth wall_

_setting: wayne townhouse near princeton_

_players: -bruce wayne, age 19_  

_-alfred pennyworth, age 41_

It had been several hours since Alfred had expected to hear from Bruce. He was a young man, responsible for himself, and it wasn’t unusual for him to spend a night away from the townhouse.

However, it was unusual to not hear from him in some way or another that he had plans.

Still, he was an adult and Alfred was not even in the position to give him freedom– it was just something Bruce had and operated in. It was good and healthy and expected.

But Alfred couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong, as he sat and read.

When the door opened, it was nearly three in the morning and Bruce was already on the stairs when Alfred made it to the foyer.

“Good evening, Master Bruce,” he said, relieved and tired and ready to go to bed after genuinely losing track of the time. There was no rebuke in his tone because it was hardly the place for it.

But Bruce stiffened on the stairs and Alfred noticed.

“Night, Alfred,” he mumbled, like his mouth was full of marbles.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said, a bit too sharply, perhaps.

Bruce straightened and turned, slowly. There was an angry bruise next to the young man’s swollen lip; the dark slope of a bruise beneath his eye. It was then that Alfred noticed the blood on his cuffs.

Alfred was concerned but not angry.

Then Bruce smiled, the perfect flash of teeth and curve cutting across his battered face and he gave a slight shrug.

“It’s nothing, Al,” he said dismissively.

But it was too late. The smile was like a knife twisted in Alfred’s back, a cold blade between his shoulders and pricking dangerously close to his spine. His knees felt weak at the same time his chest was hot and fully of fury.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred snapped.

But he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

After all, hadn’t he taught him? Hadn’t he shielded the boy from his own true feelings, over and over, in the name of protection?

He felt suddenly exhausted to his bones and there was still work to do. He dropped his gaze to the floor, away from Bruce, and trudged up the stairs past him. It was like walking through a nightmare, so stiff and sluggish was the silence.

There was a first aid kit in the upstairs bathroom and he retrieved it. Bruce was still frozen on the staircase, but climbed to meet him when he saw the white box in Alfred’s hands.

They sat in that weighted quiet while Alfred looked over the bruises and scrapes on Bruce’s face and hands. Neither of them made eye contact.

“There was a girl,” Bruce said haltingly, when Alfred clicked the clasps on the first aid kit shut.

Alfred kept his silence.

“There was a man harassing her, at the restaurant. The manager called the police. They wouldn’t do anything.”

Alfred put the box away.

“It made me sick. She looked terrified. I jumped him, in the parking lot. I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I just didn’t want him to get away with it.”

It was stupid, but Bruce evidently had come to that conclusion on his own, or so Alfred hoped.

“I cannot continue in your service,” Alfred said, stamping on his own heart. He had made too many mistakes, messed up too thoroughly, and he had decided in the time he bandaged Bruce’s hand that while he could live with that failure he could not live a lie.

“What?” Bruce demanded, sounding more scared and childlike than Alfred had heard for many years. “Al, he was–”

“I can work for a man who desires to right wrongs,” Alfred said, looking into Bruce’s eyes for the first time since he stood at the bottom of the stairs. “But I cannot and will not work for a man who puts on an act for me. That has always been for the outside world. If I am now to be part of the world that demands a performance, it would be wiser and kinder to both of us to make the severance complete.”

Bruce held his gaze for a long time, even with one blue eye partially swollen shut.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “You deserve better. Please, stay.”

“Do I have your word?” Alfred asked, watching.

Bruce slouched with his head in his hands. His eyes were closed. There was no look up to the left, no careful pause.

“Yes,” Bruce said, quickly. “Of course. It won’t happen again. I couldn’t get it past you, anyway.”

“No,” Alfred agreed, smiling slightly, “no, you could not. And not that it is quite my place, but I’d rather prefer it if you were more adequately trained before you go attacking bastards in parking lots again.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said, looking up with a genuine and rueful half-grin, something apologetic and boyish in it, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I’ve kind of been thinking.”

“Shall we move to somewhere besides the lavatory for philosophical discussion?” Alfred suggested and Bruce stood.

“It might be more than philosophical,” Bruce warned. “And you might not like it.”

“You leave the evaluation of my taste to me,” Alfred said, “and I will forgive your fumbling attempts at philosophy and practical application.”

“Most people think I’m pretty smart,” Bruce said defensively, walking ahead of Alfred down the stairs.

“Perhaps we can attribute that to your having a good acting teacher,” Alfred replied.

“You could stand to eat some humble pie sometime,” Bruce grumbled as they entered the living room. He sat on the couch and leaned back and closed his eyes, as if he was leaning more toward sleep than discussion.

“If only you could bake,” Alfred said mildly.

Bruce’s eyes flew open and the young man snorted in laughter.

Alfred took the armchair.

“So, what have you been thinking about?” Alfred asked, his heart still torn but feeling less ragged. He was at fault, here, but he could live with patching things up as he went.

Bruce talked for a long time.

Alfred listened, a twisting melody of pride and dread inside his chest.

It was too late to turn back.

And he rather didn’t want to.

 

_act: present_

_scene: wayne manor_

_players: alfred pennyworth, age irrelevant_

Alfred goes to the Cave after seeing off the last of the guests, with polite and smiling excuses for Bruce’s absence depending on the recipient– sometimes it is business, sometimes it is a woman, sometimes it is Dick Grayson’s homework.

He waits, cleaning the motorcycle, for their return.

When they come back, Alfred takes the discarded Robin uniform when Dick tosses it to him from the shower room while chattering excitedly. The boy heads upstairs declaring his intentions to hunt down party leftovers and Bruce calls after him, “Good work tonight, chum.”

Dick Grayson leaves the cave and Bruce’s shoulders sag, just a little, and he sits in the chair in front of the massive, humming computer.

“Hard night, sir?” Alfred asks, shaking out Dick’s cape.

“Yes,” Bruce says briefly. “I don’t know how you always know, before I even say anything.”

“Perhaps I’m a telepath, sir,” Alfred says with a raise of his eyebrow.

Bruce exhales in a way that is almost like curtailed laughter.

“I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind before. And Dick won’t be going out tomorrow night. I need to take care of something.”

This means whatever it is will be more dangerous than usual and Bruce, like Alfred did before him, has his own limits and reservations.

Alfred cannot fault him for helping Dick in much the same way Alfred helped Bruce: the only way he knows how, with his sharpest and most honed skills.

There are many things Alfred is certain of, many things he cannot pretend or act away, and one is that he will always be convinced he did the best he could while doubting if it was enough.

He is so incredibly proud of Bruce Wayne, of the commitment to redeem his city and defend the weak. And he wonders, too often, if he did more harm than help and Bruce grew into the man he was despite it.

When he realizes he is still standing there with the bright cape draped over his arm, he starts, and finds Bruce turned in the chair and regarding him thoughtfully.

“I think I could be doing better with Dick,” Bruce admits after a moment, a frown creasing his brow. He turns from Alfred to the computer and when his fingers are poised above the keyboard, he adds, “I don’t know if I can do half as well as you did. It’s a lot to live up to. And you made it look easy.”

Alfred’s heart is in his throat and there is this boy in front of him, his back to him, his spine straight and his shoulders curved in that way he sits when he is himself. Except he isn’t a boy, he’s a man, a man with his own son and his own doubts that he hides from all the world.

Except Alfred. Because he gave his word.

Alfred puts a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, a rare thing between them when it is not grief or injury forcing it and Bruce stops typing but does not look up.

“It is never easy,” Alfred says, “and we often wonder if we could do better. I do, even now. We don’t get to rehearse. But we do our best.”

“What’s that Asimov quotation? ‘To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.’ You’re a hell of an improvisational actor, Alfred,” Bruce says, sitting back in the chair.

“The trick,” Alfred says, turning away and folding the cape into a neat square, “is that at some point, it ceases to be acting.”

“Al,” Bruce says, when Alfred is halfway across the room and placing the cape in a drawer, “I don’t say this often enough, but I’m glad you’ve stuck around.”

“So am I,” Alfred says, with a quiet and private and real smile down at the cape and then shared with Bruce across the space between them. “It is an honor, Master Bruce. And I hope you know that I see it that way.”

Bruce’s smile is tired, weariness itself, but it is real.


End file.
